For a project distributed as source code in Unix-like systems, upon getting the source, normally you would run:
./configure
make
The magic behind configure, make, make install – How it works in Unix explains what’s happening. Below is a simple drawing of the flow. Note that “project startup” was done when the project was first created by the project owner.
The corresponding Mermaid flow char diagram source code:
%% Mermaid drawing, view with https://mermaid.live/
flowchart LR
classDef Executable fill:#411,stroke-width:2px;
classDef File fill:#141,stroke-width:2px;
subgraph project startup
a[Makefile.am]:::File
b([automake]):::Executable
d[configure.ac]:::File
e([autoconfig]):::Executable
end
subgraph source code repo
c[Makefile.in]:::File
f([configure]):::Executable
j[source code]:::File
end
g[Makefile]:::File
h([make]):::Executable
i[executable]:::Executable
a[Makefile.am] --> b([automake]) --> c[Makefile.in]
d[configure.ac] --> e([autoconfig]) --> f([configure])
c[Makefile.in] --> f([configure]) --> g[Makefile]
j[source code] --> h([make])
g[Makefile] --> h([make]) --> i[executable]
See also: Build Project with CMake
Binglong's space 